


Strength and Guile

by Shoshanna Gold (shoshannagold)



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-18
Updated: 2009-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoshannagold/pseuds/Shoshanna%20Gold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brad did what he always did when he was confronted with a new or unexpected situation: he observed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength and Guile

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Porn Skirmish. Prompt: Any pairing - "I'll do such things to ease your pain/Free your mind and you won't feel ashamed/Open up gonna come inside/Gonna fill you up/Make you cry" (lyric by Sophie B. Hawkins). Thanks to [](http://mydocuments.livejournal.com/profile)[**mydocuments**](http://mydocuments.livejournal.com/) for being a bad influence - this is really her fault, [](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/profile)[**oxoniensis**](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/) for being a wonderful beta, and to [](http://romanticalgirl.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://romanticalgirl.livejournal.com/)**romanticalgirl** for her insight.
> 
> _Strength and Guile_ is the British SBS motto.

As much as Brad loved the United States Marine Corps, after six months in the desert with the charming combination of knuckle-draggers and glory-hounds that comprised most of First Recon's command, some kind of change was clearly required. Civilian life wasn't an option for him, no matter how fucked up the military was, so he looked for alternatives within the warrior world. He didn't believe in God or fate – the timing of the exchange with the RM had merely been coincidence. Beautiful coincidence.

For all that Brad had known that there would be differences, he'd expected some things to be the same. Orders would be ninety per cent bullshit; officers would be, by and large, self-important fucks who couldn't find their assholes with a chart of the human body in hand; and he'd live and die for the grunts training and fighting beside him.

It hadn't been hard to fit into the Special Boat Services unit at Poole, Dorset. There was some hazing, but this was a Special Forces unit, comprised of professionals – _most_ of them had gotten the extreme posturing shit out of their system years ago. Brad drank some weird pints laced with unknown toxic waste, run a few extra miles, spent a day at the nude beach just past the base, and, one night, swam a good half of the Channel during a violent storm. Within the month he was just another one of the boys. Or 'lads,' or whatever the fuck the correct term was on a squad of bad-ass killers. SOP, just as he expected.

The biggest similarity was that whether they were from Oceanside, Poole, or, the third fucking ring of Jupiter's fourth moon, Marines talked shit twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. At chow, while training, on a dive 500 metres down a underwater cave, there'd be somebody talking. They talked about the op, they talked about music, they talked about Miss July's tits. And they talked about getting some.

The difference was, in Brad's squad, getting some didn't always mean pussy.

Homoerotic references raged wild in the SBS, just as they did at home, but they weren't underpinned with the same virulent homophobia. Nobody was looking over their shoulders to make sure their six was secure as they made a gay joke or talked shit about sucking cock or taking it up the ass.

And sometimes, when one of them talked about getting a piece of ass, they meant ass.

Brad grew up in the US military culture. It was a shock to hear somebody discuss the great fuck they'd had over the weekend and realize they were talking about a guy. Nor had he ever worked on a team with a guy who was openly gay. That was the entire point of DADT – you suspected, you guessed, you went to a buddy's place for dinner and met their 'roommate', but you sure as fuck didn't count the racks in the one-bedroom house. You didn't _ask_, you didn't _tell_ and nobody got goddamn court-martialed. Or shot.

It didn't make any fucking difference to Brad who sucked whose cock at the end of the day. He might have gone to military school and graduated into the Corps, where repression was honed to a fine art, but he'd also been raised in a liberal household in Southern California. His parents were reform Jews whose attitude was, 'live and let live.' His older sister was a dyke, for Christ's sake.

But none of that shit – not the failed brainwashing by the US military, not the tolerance he'd been taught since he was little – helped Brad deal with how he felt about Oliver Spencer.

Oliver was a Swimmer Canoeist, and like the rest of Brad's new squad, was one of the best bad-asses Brad had ever met. Not nothing, that, since Brad had the privilege of being surrounded by bad-ass motherfuckers for his entire career.

Oliver was also highly attractive and openly gay. He was tall and built – he had about two inches and twenty pounds on Brad, but he moved with a swimmer's grace, despite all that bulk. His coloring spoke of Mediterranean ancestry: he shaved his head, like half the guys in the squad, but his eyes were dark brown, almost black, and lined with thick black lashes. His skin stayed tan even as the weather turned bleak and even more rainy and if Brad were inclined toward poetic bullshit, he would say that when he looked at Oliver's skin gleaming in the shower room when the squad hosed off the day, he imagined white, sandy Greek beaches and deep blue seas that went on forever.

There was a reason he had let Ray do most of the talking to Reporter – he sounded like a pussy when he talked about shit that moved him.

The entire Commando knew that Oliver was homosexual. They fucked with him about it, teased him about fudge-packing, mocked his choice in men, put lipstick and flowers in his gear. All the standard bullshit everyone put up with, modified for their gay squadmate. Marines were inventive fuckers – Brad was impressed with some of the practical jokes they pulled on the guy. But at the same time, his squadmates double-dated with Oliver; knew his boyfriends, when he had them. They knew when he didn't, and some of them set Oliver up with friends, relatives, other Marines.

Brad – didn't. Didn't fuck with Oliver by slicking his shower shoes with KY; didn't joke with him about the cute blond recruit with the bubble butt who worked in the Admiral's office and openly pined over Oliver; didn't invite Oliver and his flavor of the month out when Brad started casually seeing Bridget, the hot chick who ran the same path he did on his days off.

Brad did what he always did when he was confronted with a new or unexpected situation: he observed. He didn't think it was obvious - he was trained not to be obvious.

A civilian would never have noticed that he watched Oliver more than he watched the others, that he didn't talk to Oliver as much as he did the other squaddies, that he kept his distance. He was so preoccupied with Oliver's sexuality that he forgot that, first and foremost, Oliver was a badass motherfucker.

He was abruptly reminded of that one evening when it was just the two of them left in the locker room.

Brad wasn't, for once, paying attention to Oliver. They'd just been on a 15 klick run in the rain, and his ankle was bothering him.

He was stretching it, thinking about ice and heat and the bathtub in the flat he'd just rented by himself after a fucking excruciating six months of living in a suite in the barracks with three other exchange NCOs. He'd noticed the other Marines leaving, but only peripherally.

Fucking Christ. He knew better than to let his guard down like that, he reflected bitterly, as Oliver came up behind him and slammed him up against the wall.

Brad tried to struggle, but it was no use. He'd taken guys who were taller than him, bigger than him before, but not only did Oliver have size on his side, he was as highly trained in physical combat as Brad and he knew how to use his size. Every bit of force he had was being used to pin Brad in place.

"Listen up, mate. You and me are due for a bit of a chat."

"I don't have a fucking thing to say to you," said Brad, concentrating on keeping his breath even.

"Then you can shut up and bloody well listen, you cunt. I've been trying to figure you out, Colbert. You're a Yank, but you're not the typical asshole. Either you're a fucking homophobe or you're the most repressed motherfucker I've ever met in my life, and I work with squaddies, so that's saying something, isn't it?"

Oliver shifted his weight and Brad paid careful attention, looking for even a second of weakness he could use to break the hold, but if anything his grip on Brad just got stronger. "I don't think you're scared of poofters, Colbert. Not your fucking style, to be scared of anything. You know what I think? I think that fucking beloved Corps of yours has you so fucked in the head about guys who take it in the ass that you don't know how to ask for it." His words might have seemed threatening, but his tone was quiet and affectionate, the way Ray spoke to him when he was giving Brad shit for having dinner with his ex-girlfriend.

Oliver moved closer, so that every inch of him was pressed up against Brad, so that Brad could feel his hard dick nestled in the crack of Brad's ass through the thin material of their briefs.

"I'm sure we can find some way to work this out, Oliver, if you fucking let go of me." Brad's voice was steady and quiet: there was no way he was giving any kind of clue away to this pasty island-bred dick-suck.

Oliver squeezed his wrist, hard. "You'd like me to think you're as cool as a fucking cucumber, wouldn't you. I've been though the wringer with those fucking masochists who imagine they know something about resisting torture, too. Mind, I haven't got a rubber hose, you arse. Mine's a lot harder than that."

He rubbed into Brad's ass again and Brad forced himself to take steady breaths, to relax. Being raped up the ass would hurt a lot less if he let it happen. He'd broken bones, torn muscles, been burned from the discharge of bullets from a fifty cal though the open roof of the humvee. He'd endured worse before, he'd endure worse again.

If only it was pain he was trying to overcome.

Oliver's hand moved from his shoulder blade to his waist, and Brad closed his eyes. He ignored the heavy warmth rising in his belly. He would pretend this was just another training exercise, one where he knew what to expect, technically speaking.

Oliver would rip off his skivvies, lube himself up with spit, and have his way. Brad thought about the Great Barrier Reef, thought about sinking down in the depths of all that coral, just him and the schools of pink fish that didn't even notice him, that swam around him and with him, like he was one of them.

His SERE training instructor had told him before his week of hell that no matter what, nobody would ever be able to see inside his head, that if he stayed there by himself, he'd never be a security breach.

Brad had passed SERE without flaw.

Unexpectedly, the hand on his neck softened. "Nobody gets in, do they, Brad?"

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Brad gritted out. "Get it fucking over with or get the fuck off me, you shit-banging psychopath."

"You're such a stubborn tosser. You couldn't just give in, could you? Tell me that you're cool with gays, that your best friend sucks cock, that Don't Ask, Don't Tell fucked you in the head."

"I'm cool with gays, my best friend sucks my cock, and Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a perfectly rational policy given the overwhelming evidence in front of me that fags are unsuited for the service and detrimental to the combat unit."

Oliver laughed, his breath warm against Brad's cheek. "You could get away, Brad. I'm not even trying right now."

"I take one step out of line, and you break my left arm," said Brad. "I know your type, Spencer. You're an opportunistic prick. I can still work with a torn asshole, but a broken bone would put me on the casualty list for a couple of months, and I'd have to think of way to cover it. I'd probably go with that option, regardless, but a bone breaks differently with a fall than by a hand, and I can't think of a story that explains that, too, so the advantage remains yours."

"Well, then I'd better take it, hadn't I?" said Oliver, and kissed the back of Brad's neck.

Of everything Oliver could have done, that was the last thing Brad had been expecting. Marines didn't kiss each other. Brad had never been kissed by a man who wasn't directly related to him, and then never anywhere but on the cheek.

He was completely unprepared for the way it disarmed him, for the way he wanted to bow his head and give Oliver more flesh to work with.

For the way he wanted to lean his head back and see what it felt like to be kissed like that on the mouth, by somebody as strong as him, somebody who would lick and kiss and suck, and keep up.

This was why he'd kept his fucking distance from this man.

"I locked the door," said Oliver. "All the lads have gone to the pub but I don't want to run the chance of the bloody cleaner walking in while I get you off. There are better places for a first time, but this is strangely fitting, innit?"

"You are fucking delusional if you think there's going to be a second time," said Brad. And fuck if he hadn't just conceded that there was going to be a first time.

"You're fucking delusional if you think there isn't," Oliver countered.

"This is your idea of fucking seduction? You couldn't have just asked me out for dinner and liquored me up?"

"You wouldn't have come," Oliver said simply. "Enough foreplay, Colbert." His hand tightened on Brad's hip, but that time Brad didn't feel anything but Oliver's need. All the menace had left his touch.

He kissed the back of Brad's neck again. "But I'm not shagging you for the first time in a locker room, Brad, either. There are better ways for your virgin ass to take my prick."

"You really are an arrogant son of a bitch, aren't you?" Brad marveled. "I know that you SBS guys consider yourselves gods, but what the fuck makes you think I'm going to bend over for you? Too many knocks to the head with that paddle, Swimmer Canoeist?"

Oliver laughed again, sliding his hand down between Brad's crotch and the wall, rubbing his hand over Brad's cock. Brad was hard. Naturally, his body would choose now to betray him like that. "I couldn't give a fuck about who bends who over what, Colbert. I'd gladly spread my legs for this gorgeous cock of yours and by the time I'm done with you, you're going to be gagging for it."

Oliver might be right, given the way he was rubbing his thumb over the head of Brad's dick through his briefs, tracing the tip of it roughly, like he knew Brad could take it, but fuck if Brad was going to give him the satisfaction of hearing him say that. "When you're done fucking around there, you can get down on your knees for me like the cocksucker you are. Your reputation precedes you here, Spencer – I expect to see fucking stars and little birds when I come down your throat."

Oliver stepped back – the absence of his body a cold space on Brad's back – and pulled on Brad's arm, turning him to face forward again. Brad let himself be maneuvered that way, finally getting the chance to meet Oliver's eyes. Brad smiled slowly, and reached around to grab Oliver's ass, squeezing softly. "If you're going to fucking defile me against my wishes, I may as well get to choose the way I'm sullied by your touch."

"Fair enough." Oliver laughed. He ran his hand down Brad's chest, stopping to press his thumb into the curve of Brad's navel. "We'll have a go in here just to get you primed – and because I really am gagging for a taste of you – and then we'll shove off, yeah, find some place with a bed and some proper goods. Everything I do to you, Brad, I'm going to expect reciprocated. Take notes, mate – by the time we send you back to the colonies, I'm going to have you wanting to dance on a float on Pride Day down Regent Street."

Brad grinned and kissed him – kissed a man - for the first time. Oliver's mouth was strong, giving and promising. Brad took a moment to appreciate that, before pulling away. "Are you doing all this just so you can win a bet with those jerk-offs we work with?"

Oliver nodded, kissing Brad back. "Yeah. I risked life and limb by taking on a repressed, unhappy Yank who could kill me with his bare hands because it's going to get me free pints at the pub. You didn't think it was about trying to rid you of some of that fucking misery, did you?"

Brad shook his head. "Conniving asshole. You can make it up to me with bacon sandwiches and blow jobs tomorrow morning."

Oliver dropped to his knees, and looked up at Brad. "I'll just get a head start then, shall I? In case I burn the toast."

Brad rested a hand on Oliver's head, caressing the short hair softly as Oliver pulled his briefs down. Fuck the SOP.


End file.
